Bring on the Learning Revolution - Ken Robinson TED Talk

I recommend this talk for all learners and educators.

Robinson argues that our ideas of education are still stuck in the past and need to change to a more individualized development of talent.

"We have built our education on the models of fast food. Everything is standardized."

"We need to dis-enthrall ourselves from ideas of past"

"Its' about passion and what excites us; what gives us energy. If you are doing something you love, an hour feels like 5 minutes. If you doing something you hate, 5 minutes feels like an hour."

Stop thinking about education linearly--"go to college and you will be OK". Think about it organically, like a farmer. We need to create a movement of education that is individualized to provide an environment of support that each learner needs. Move from an industrial to agricultural model.

"Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams." Every day, we tread on children's dreams. We need to tread softly.

Good TED Talk: Social experiments to fight poverty

As my students at ICU choose research areas to pursue for their 1st year essays or consider a research field to major it, I think TED talks like this can inspire and stimulate thought.

Esther Duflo, a development economist and fellow at MIT, speaks about how small but well-designed development assistant projects such as providing bed nets to fight malaria or basic immunizations to impoverished regions can lead to scientifically measurable results in improving the quality of life in certain regions. Although fighting poverty can seem like a futile efforts at times, she calls for commitment to continue to fund projects that work and make a difference.

Another thing I like about this video is how this French speaker of English starts by warning the audience about her quite heavy accent, but then delivers the talk with excellent articulation and passion and control of her message. Japanese speakers of English should also accept that an accent is not an impediment to successful public speaking. The suprasegmental aspects of speech such as emphasis and thought grouping, and of course the confidence of delivery is what makes a good speaker. I want to use this video to show my presentation skills classes.

GW 秋川キャンプ&味スタサッカー

How to Drive Innovation in an Organization, by Google VP Mayer

Nice talk on innovation shared from a colleague of mine. Innovation in education is definitely on my mind, both for my own classes and on a larger institutional and global scale. Like Google, I want to be working closely with my "users" to suck up their feedback and ideas and make our learning fit their needs closely. So, how do I do that better? Nice ideas in this presentation.

This blog has a summary of the main points.
http://www.think-differently.org/2007/08/google-on-innovation.html

Social responsibility vs. Individual Liberty: The case of banning the full-face burqa in public places

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/opinion/05cope.html

One of my students a few years back wrote a very interesting research paper suggesting that the right to wear a burqa in public should be supported based on a respect for cultural and religious freedom. This mayor of a French city thinks differently. Very interesting arguments.

Perhaps there is a middle ground? Isn't it possible to somehow allow the burqa (or any full face mask) to be worn but also ensure public safety? Or is public safety really the issue here? Hmm...

Visited the Earth Marathon Cafe--Go Kampei-chan!

My marathon buddy Toshi is a fan of Kampei-chan's Earth Marathon and proposed that we have a few drinks at the Earth Marathon izakaya in Shinjuku named

TISTAROCCA（チスタロッカ）

http://www.earth-marathon.com/2010/04/02/000016.html

Good takoyaki!

The Earth Marathon is an amazing project by 60 year-old comedian Kampei-chan to run around the globe. He has done 32,500km over 485 days, but now is taking time off in San Francisco for cancer therapy. I hope he will recover soon and finish his run.

I wasn't so interested in this prior to last week, but watching the videos of this comedian jogging through Iran and Turkmenistan and interacting with the local people changed my mind. I think this type of project can help mutual understanding between cultures a lot.

The Examined Life: Age 8

My son is almost 7, so this title in the NY Times caught my eye.

The main idea is that kids can enjoy philosophical discussions. The example given in the article is eight-year old kids at a charter school discussing the ethics of the story "Giving Tree" in which a tree gives its friend, a human boy, apples, branches and finally its trunk to help him. One of the discussion questions "Should the boy take so much from the tree?"

OK, I can give that a try with Michael. I wish there were a nice list of kids picture books that lend themselves to philosophical discussions...

Just today, Michael was reading to me the "No Tooth, No Quarter" about the kingdom of tooth fairies. Where would I go with that...? Hmm...Is a quarter a tooth a fair exchange rate?